Sunday, April 20, 2008

Grad studies - I: incoherent ponderings

The jobless grad student inside me is surfacing yet again. This Friday night was spent in two parts. Admittedly though, both turned out to be fruitful.

The first part was a dinner organized by the Brazilian-Portuguese students association. The food was sumptuous, the cultural programs were nice too (maculele, a capoeira demonstration, and you guessed it, a samba band). Goes without a saying that chicks were hot too :) Hope I get to go to Brazil for a conference some day ;)

The second part was spent on making my website. Well, here's the crucial part. I put in a link to a "resources" page, with the noble intention of collecting lots of links on the web on various topics related to materials research as well as grad studies. Well, I am yet to put up links on materials research, but I did put in a few of my favorite links pertaining to grad studies. The page is by no means complete, but it is hopefully a decent start.

In my blog, I am hoping to put up a few short essays (all opinions my own only) on graduate studies. Obviously *few* essays will relate to *few* important aspects (or at least, what I consider important) of grad studies. This post though, is basically to list these aspects, lest I forget them later.

1. Why enter a grad program?
2. Exploring academia while an undergrad
3. Where to apply (choosing universities/ grad studies in India or abroad)
4. Standardized tests, SOPs, letters of recommendations, etc.
5. Choosing an adviser/PhD guide/major professor
6. The PhD timeline
7. Soft skills
8. How to go about the literature review
9. Framing a research problem and the preliminary research proposal
10. Writing the thesis
11. Life after PhD

11 topics! huh! hope I maintain the motivation to write stuff on all these.
By the way, some of the most interesting articles on grad studies can be found in Prof Abinandanan's blog under the label higher ed-advice.

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